


Faith in Brighter Days

by kashicanhaz



Series: Look At Me [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, HEA, modern!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:01:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kashicanhaz/pseuds/kashicanhaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A succession of scenes, taking place after the events of "Look At Me" and "Alameda".  Sandor's got a surprise for Sansa.</p><p>Title comes from the song "You Are Young" by Keane</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faith in Brighter Days

“...Little bird, you might want to see this.”

Sandor sits transfixed before the computer screen, its white pallor throwing the sharp angles of his face, which she admires so fiercely, into the sort of sharp relief found in old horror films.  The tone of his voice, soft and incredulous, makes her jump—only one thing could shock him to such tenderness.

“If it’s about that monster Greyjoy, I already know and don’t want to know any more.”  She draws the zip across her suitcase, not quite full to bursting, to punctuate her declaration.  Revising his testimony, he says.  It makes her so angry she can feel her blood heating under her jawbone and she’s only thinking about it.

“...are you su—”

“Yes.”

“...but it says he—”

“I _know_ ,” she spits.  _I’m sounding like him. Like he used to._

He spins around in the swivel chair he’s much too big for.  Someone wanting to mock him would remark that he’s been tamed—his expression is open, observant, tempered with reverence before he speaks.  “You’re not the least bit curious?”

With a heavy heart she conceals behind venomous rage, not directed at him, she hisses, “My brothers are dead.  What’s there to be curious about?”  But her rage has always been a paltry thing.  It is not long before, anger dissolved, she is shaking and his arms are around her to still it.

“I’m sorry it’s upsetting you, little bird.  Forget I said anything.” And presses a kiss to the crown of her head.

::

The next day they board an AirLingus to Dublin.  She watches his eyes flicker with something from a faraway time as they look over each other’s passports, hers from just before they met, his from just after he proposed.  “You’re going to have to get a new one soon,” he says, handing the worn blue document back to her, taking his stiff one from her fingers.  And she thinks he is talking about the age of the thing until he adds, “your name’s not going to be Stark for much longer.”  And then—despite himself, she imagines—he breaks into a broad smile and kisses her, in the middle of the gate, before kissing her engagement ring, as he’s taken to doing lately.

And she doesn’t tell him that she’d have to get a new one soon anyway, because this one’s going to expire.  She just looks in his eyes, smiles back, and says his new favourite thing, “Sansa Stark Clegane.”

But that’s not her name yet.  It’s fitting, she thinks, that she is yet Sansa Tully Stark, Boston Irish on both sides of her family tree, as she boards this plane to begin her pilgrimage.  But it is also fitting that Sandor is here, making her pilgrimage with her.  Because nothing in her life fits quite right without him, she’s found.

::::

He knows she’s confused when he insists on driving her into the city when she goes to look for her wedding dress four months later, but (because she’s perfect) she doesn’t ask; he’s got an appointment of his own, and it’s not a tux fitting.  Though he’s got to do that at some point—he curses himself again for forgetting—because no matter how sweetly he protests, Sansa will accept nothing less than an ultra-formal dress code for their wedding.

Even if they are getting married on the beach.

In _June._

Stranger rolls quietly through the narrow streets of downtown, grey in the midmorning.  Sansa gives his shoulder a squeeze—even through his hoodie he can feel her ring, he thinks, and though they’ve been engaged for ten months it still thrills him to think about it—while her friend Jeyne, who flew in from Boston specifically for this shopping trip, is still running her mouth about something.  He finds the restaurant, slows the car.  The girls are lunching first, which gives him more time.  His heart still feels like to explode as she ducks into the passenger’s seat to give him a swift kiss and a blistering smile.  _God she’s beautiful.  And mine.  Mine._

::

The day before, when he comes home from the AA meeting, he finds her changing the sheets in the guest bedroom, that, quite frankly, he forgot they had.  And even though her old friend is coming, brown-eyed Jeyne, who she has gone on about at length, saying in as many different ways as English could allow that she cannot wait for her to meet him, she looks sad.  Not nervous or apprehensive, like he is, but sad.

“Dress shopping tomorrow,” she says, part sniffle, as she lays her cheek down on his shoulder when he scoops her up, desperate to counteract her sadness.

“I thought little birds liked dress shopping,” he murmurs around a kiss to her temple.

“I do...I just...” she shakes her hair away from her face as she leans back.  The corners of her eyes are narrowed and her lips are pressed thin—she’s about to make a speech; he knows this face now. “I’ve come to a time in my life that I’ve been imagining since I was a little girl.  And...Well I mean, first, there’s the staggering reality of it, that it’s all finally happening and I’m so much happier, deeply, profoundly happier, than I could have ever imagined being before.”  He can’t help the red-hot happiness making itself known in his chest, expanding in him and taking over.  “But at the same time, whenever I pictured going dress shopping I always imagined Arya trailing along, blowing her bangs out of her face and snarking at me, pouting about being put in her dress...” her eyes began to wet, and he curled one hand into her hair, drawing her against his chest.

“I used it as vengeance, Sandor!  Every time she would do something...” she sniffled, “...say something annoying...” another sniffle, “...I would think to myself, ‘yeah, you’re mad now...you just _wait!_   I’m going to make you wear _pink_ at my wedding...’” And she dissolves into sobs against his chest.  It sounded absurd, of course, but he understood her completely.  “And...” Sansa was hiccupping with sobs by now.  “She always looked so pretty in pink.  She never knew it.  I never told her.  But _she did!_ ”

Sandor knows enough about her, about the way her guilt worked at her, to know what this was.  So he holds her.  Keeps holding her until she’s stopped, and after, and would have held her until the end of time if not for her oldest friend, who she was so excited for him to meet, arriving on a Boeing 737 later that day, to sleep in the sheets she’d changed in the room he’d forgotten about.

And as he stretched out on their bed to sleep—alone, and he could hear the girls tittering in the room adjacent as they caught up—he could hear her voice, not from between the walls but from the record of his memory, wracked by hiccups: ‘ _I’m going to make you wear_ pink _at my wedding!_ ’ and he smiles to himself.  Because he knows his little bird is a woman of her word.

::

She staggers out of customs begrudgingly in a flood of bright-eyed Argentineans, dark circles under hers made darker by smudges of eyeliner that must be illegal to do without, in her line of work.  Her asymmetrical haircut is mussed, her pierced lips are held in a scowl.  She leans under the weight of a black duffel bag, which he will take from her and carry himself if he has to fight her for it, and the Docs on her feet are the same, he thinks, as the ones he found her wearing in Phoenix, the first of these two times he’s recovered her from oblivion.  It’s nearly a glare that she shoots him as she speaks, but not quite.

“You certainly aren’t looking better.”

“Nice to see you too, wolf bitch.  Get in the goddamned truck.  And give me the duffel bag, because I swear to God, if your sister finds out you carried it yourself, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

She snickers but gives it up without a fight, nearly tripping under the lost weight.  “She’s got you good and trained, hasn’t she?”

“Get in the goddamned truck.”

“Pussy whipped, I’ll bet.”

“You’d better not talk like that around your sister.”

“Why not?  ‘s the only way she’ll know it’s me.”

And she’s right—the wolf bitch looks different than he remembers.  Her hair, grown long, is dyed so many colours he doesn’t even know what to call it, shaved on one side, her face riddled with holes and her arms covered in ink.  His kind of girl, he would have thought at one point.  But he knows better now.

“Got you a coffee.”

“You’re a Godsend!” she shrieks, forgetting their animosity and diving for the cup holder.  Her knuckles are bony and she looks underfed.  He hopes she isn’t using, but she speaks before he can ask.  “You know, when that guy Varys told me you and my sister were getting married, I laughed in his face.”

“And called him a crackpot.  Yeah.  He told me.”  He pulls out of the parking garage, his soon-to-be-sister-in-law blinking rapidly in the sunlight.  “What convinced you?”

“He showed me some facebook pictures...Sansa’s always wanted to go to Ireland, you know.”

“I know.  She told me.”

“I figured you couldn’t be all bad, if she took you to Ireland with her.  She used to say she wanted it to be a family vacation, but Dad could never get off work for it.  It was her and mom’s brainchild.”

Sandor knows all of this—Sansa’s told him so many times—but he lets the little wolf fill him in.  Between her snarky cuts, the fact of her prattling almost sounds like trust to him.

“You’ll have to sleep on the couch,” he says, merging onto the highway and clearing his throat.  “Sansa’s friend Jeyne is here.  She’s got the guest bedroom.”

Arya sips at her coffee, hisses at the heat.  “I’ve slept in worse places.  Back of this fucking car for one.”

“You’re welcome for that, by the way.”

“I didn’t thank you.”

But they both knew she wanted to, somewhere tucked far below her pride, because they both knew he made a difference that wasn’t entirely bad.

“Best put on your game face, little she-wolf.  I’m not the biggest trial you’ll have this morning.”

She takes another sip, slurping noisily to cool her drink.  It works.  “Why’s that?”

“You’re going dress shopping with your sister.”

She swears loudly.  He snickers.

::::

“Sansa, you’ve got a text message.”

She’s in a changing room at the boutique, trying on her first dress—satin, bright white, not right at all—and trying not to feel deflated because this morning is both everything and nothing like she’s ever imagined.

“Who’s it from?”

“Sandor.”

“Read it to me.”  She’s confident it’ll be something sweet.  She hopes it will be.  She wants to show him off to her friends, who have all taken to him to varying degrees without ever giving her the impression that they wholeheartedly approve.

“That’s weird.”  Jeyne sounds judgemental.

Her heart falls.  She reaches around to undo the zipper.  “What’s it say?” 

“It says ‘don’t worry, I’m not crashing.  where are you right now?  Specifics, please, store, floor, any landmarks.  And don’t move until it arrives.  You’ll know when you see it.’”

Her college friends pipe up with their own murmurs of questioning disapproval.

“Answer him,” Sansa barks, almost like an order.  Whatever this is, she knows it’ll be good.  Or really, really bad.  _But he would have said so if something bad had happened..._

She gets back into her clothes, steps back out of the changing room, and waits with her girlfriends.  Has he ordered her flowers to come while she was dress shopping?  That would be unlike him, but it was the likeliest option she could come up with.  They discuss materials and colours for bridesmaids dresses while they wait.

“As long as you don’t make me wear pink, I’m fine with anything.”  The voice of a ghost.  She thinks.  Until she spins around in shock and a ghost could never look so different from her baby sister and oh God she can’t remember the last time she cried like this, Arya’s arms locked around her shoulders, bones digging into her bones.

Sandor is outside in the car, and Arya leads the procession of women outdoors to thank him.  He looks bashful, smiling crookedly as he gets out of the car, impossibly tall, and opens his arms for her as she launches herself at him, buoyant in her joy.  There is ecstatic fury in her kiss.  She asks him how, how, but she doesn’t expect an answer now.  His scar is contorted in a grin for her as he holds her, not ungently, and kisses her back.

::::

Evening finds the girls in the living room gathered over a couple of bottles of wine; he’s got a milkshake and has exiled himself to the deck, where he’s got his iPod and the moonlight on the sea to keep him company, wearing an old hoodie that the little bird had once commandeered to keep him warm.  It still smells like her, and that makes him happier than he worries it should.

His phone rings; it’s Varys.  _I should have called him earlier,_ Sandor thinks as he answers.  The Russian is warm and cloying as ever.

“Did Sansa enjoy her little surprise?” he coos once the polite introductions have been made.

“She nearly had a fit, I heard.  I thought she was going to break my teeth, she kissed me so hard.”  He’s grinning at the memory; he can still feel her fingers on the back of his neck.

“I can’t imagine that I could quite sympathise with the depth of her joy,” the Russian intones, sighing.  “Well.  I just though you should know.  I found them.”

Sandor sits up straight.

“Where?”

“Labrador and Greenland.  The crippled one was living with Inuits, and the little one speaks English with a Danish accent now.  He’s also not very little anymore, so my sources tell me.”

“No surprise there.  How old is he now?”

“Fifteen.”

“Fifteen?  Christ, she’s hardly going to recognize him!”

“Him or his brother.  Brandon’s eighteen now.  He contacted us, actually, claims he’s been training with mystics and that he knew we were looking for him.”

“Because that’s not weird,” Sandor grumbles, sipping on his shake.  The straw gurgles, glass empty.  “Well I won’t go looking _that_ horse in the mouth.  When can they get in?”

“...”

“ _Varys...?_ ”

“You’re not going to like this.”

“I already don’t.”  He uncrosses his legs, leans forward in his deck chair.

“The older one, Brandon—he’s my source for information on his brother.  And he insists we can’t retrieve him until the thaws come.”

“The _thaws_ come?!  What is this, the seventh century!?”

“He insists that it would not be safe.”

“Fuck that!  I want them here next week!”  He shoots upward, setting his glass down on the railing and tucking his free hand under his armpit, and begins to pace.

“He said you would say that.”

“Well did he fucking say when they would arrive?!  In their own sweet fucking time, mother _fuck_...”

“June.”

“ _JUNE?!”_

“Right before the wedding.”

“... _Christ._ ”

“Brandon’s already told me the flight number, if you want that.”

“Fuck no.”

“Er...he’s actually here with me...he says he’d like to speak to you, if he could.”

“Sure,” Sandor growled.  “Let him explain himself.”  He spits over the railing and waits for the phone to change hands.

“One last thing—he says ‘what would Sansa have you do in this case?’”

 _I’m not liking this cryptic motherfucker one bit._   But what _would_ Sansa have him do?  _Listen.  Just listen._

Sandor takes a breath.  “Okay.  I will.”

::::

Sandor seems agitated when she goes to him later, dancing out onto the deck on tiptoes after Arya and Jeyne have gone to bed.  The cool sea breeze holds his hair alight and the moon is playing on the winter pallor of his skin.  She can see his native American roots, she thinks, when he surrounds himself in nature, his features drawn, stern and pensive.  She entertains a notion of going back west with him, to the desert sands that birthed him, but then she lays her palm on the center of his back and feels him start beneath her, giving a sharp intake of breath as he curls around, looks at her, and draws his arm up over her shoulders, pulling her in for a gentle kiss, and then she can only think of his lips, and the strange tautness beneath them.

“Are you alright?” she asks when their lips part, placing her hand over his heart.  He covers her hand with his own.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, dropping a kiss on her nose, and another on her forehead.  “How was your night?”

“It was amazing.  I can’t even describe...I thought I’d never see her again,” she admits, nuzzling into his chest.  “Where did you even find her?”

“Remember the Elder Brother’s Russian friend, Varys?”

“Vaguely.”

“He called me up a couple of weeks after we got engaged.  Said he wanted to give us an engagement present, and asked me if there was anything I knew you would like.  Thinking I was being a smart-ass, I said your family back.”

“And what did he say?” She asks, stroking his arm.  The waves were crashing in the background, and even though it was January, she had half a mind to pull him out into them, make love to him where their guests wouldn’t hear her scream.

“He just said, ‘that can be arranged.’” He put on a British accent to mock the Russian, laughably bad.  She chuckles for him.  And then he’s kissing her again.

“But Arya was the only one left.  There’s no one else.”  She says when they break, not a question.  She knows she’s right.  Her Father is dead.  Her Mother is dead.  Her brothers—all three—are dead.

But there is that tautness again in Sandor, apparent for a fleeting second before he pulls her close and sighs heavily into her hair.  She’s muttered all that aloud, she realizes, and it sounds like ingratitude.

“I can’t believe you found her, though.  I’m so grateful.  Really, Sandor...” she cups his cheeks so he will look at her.  “Thank you.  From the bottom of my heart.”

“I wish I could do more, little bird.”

“Don’t.  There’s no use.”

“There _is_ ,” he growls, his fingers digging into the flesh of her hips.  “I’m not go—” but he stops himself.  He was about to say _I’m not good enough,_ but he’s not allowed to say that anymore.  She had to ban it, but he stopped.  “I just...I want to do more.  I want to make you happy.”

“You _do_ , Sandor, my _God_ you do!” And she kisses him hard.  “God, do you think I’d be marrying you if you didn’t?”

“Knowing you?” he whispers sardonically, grimacing.

“Hey now,” she growls.

“Sorry, sorry little bird,” he intones, curling back into her.  “I just...sorry.”

“It’s okay.  I’m sorry.  That was unfair of me.  It’s not even _remotely_ your fault that...it’s just me and Arya now.  I’m sorry if I made it sound that way.”  He’s more sensitive than he would ever let anyone believe, she’s learned, and likes to blame himself for things that he has no control over.  She does her best not to add to that guilt, but it surprises her sometimes.  With this in mind she brings him to her lips, kisses him sweetly, hoping that in the quiet and the comfort, he will forgive himself.

“Better?” she asks when they part, long minutes later.

He blinks, nods and smiles before pressing his forehead to hers and holding her close.

“So how’s Arya taking to wearing pink at the wedding?” he asks.  Warmth blooms in her chest.  _He remembered!_  

“Oh!  I’ve been meaning to tell you—you’re going to be thrilled!—she talked me out of pink, they’re wearing lilac now.”

“You know I don’t care what they’re wearing, little bi—”

“That’s not all she convinced me of...” she bats her eyelashes at him, takes his hands and swings them.  “She also managed to convince me that having a formal dress code for a summer beach wedding is stupid.”

He snickers, pulling her close again.  “I told you.”

“Yeah, well...”

“You had to hear it from a girl.”

“I guess...”

“Even a girl who refuses to wear pink?”

“Are you trying to get me to change my mind?” She laughs, taking his face in her hands.

“Oh God, please don’t.”  And she laughs harder.  And kisses him.  And keeps kissing him.  And gives up on not going out into the waves, even though it’s January, because he knows how to keep her warm.

::

“Please don’t tell her.”  She looks half a frightened child.

Sandor is looking calmly into the repurposed Altoids tin, playing host to three little bags of—heroin?  Coke?—he doesn’t know.  He slips it into his pocket, and will hand it over to the Elder Brother in the morning.

She looks like she’s waiting for the reaming of her life.

“You’re coming with me to the meeting tomorrow,” he says softly, evenly, brooking no argument.  It’s not the tone she was expecting.

“I’ll do anything,” she sounds so desperate.  “Just please.  Don’t tell her.”

He squats down before her, looks her in the eyes.  _Same colour as mine,_ he thinks as he searches them.  “I won’t cover for you,” he says.  “I won’t lie to her.  But I won’t tell her what she doesn’t need to know.”

“Ohmigod, _thank you!_ ” she cries, throwing her bony arms around him in exaltation.  He starts, bewildered at her sudden affection, before placing one palm on the centre of her back, noticing that she’s started to cry.

“You have to want to get better, Arya.  You’re not going to if you don’t.”

“I do,” she sniffs, palming her wet eyes. “I really do.  I don’t think I would have let you find it if I didn’t.”

He nods.  She doesn’t pull away, and he adjusts so she can cry on him more comfortably.  Rising from the sea of his memory comes his own sister, more a personal mythology of his than a figure in his past, and her spirit touches and fills this girl, _still a girl_ , that he holds.  _Sister_ , it names her. 

The “in-law” modifier will make it no less true a name.

::::

They don’t escape her notice, the phone calls he trades with God-knows-who that leave him reserved and defeated.  She endeavours to convince herself that they don’t worry her, but when it becomes clear he’s avoiding her questions, she finds it ever more challenging.

“Whoever it is, he’s going to have to answer to me,” she hisses gently, holding his waist in her arms.  He opens beneath her, draws his body around her.

“You don’t even know how right you are, little bird.”  The deep, slow vibration of his voice stirs in her hair and the crown of her skull.  And her heart too, really.

“Can’t you tell me _anything_?  You’re starting to scare me, my love.”

“I promise you’ll find out for yourself soon enough.  And it’s nothing to dread.  Relax.”

“You promise?”

“I promise, little bird,” and he kisses the crown of her head.  He never did take his promises lightly; she relaxes in his arms.

“I just hate to see you stressed,” she murmurs, her voice muffled by the muscles in his chest.

He chuckles lowly, petting her hair.  “I promise you, my stress will be well worth it.” She starts to protest but he stops her.  “You’re just going to have to trust me.”

She does catch one thing, one snippet of an exchange: “I don’t care how cold it is!  Get in there and pull him out!  If he’s not here by...” but then he noticed her, closed the deck door, and started whispering.

And despairingly—though she knows she’s being unkind to herself—she wonders if she’ll ever wholly understand him.

::::

In late May, he caves and tells the little wolf everything.  Not telling Sansa he could justify.  But not her.  Not anymore.

“You’ve got cold feet.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Why else would you be so stressed and anxious all the time?”

“Don’t be stupid.  I’d have to be an idiot to not want to marry your sister.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t.”

“I can still throw you out, you know.”  It’s an old threat, from the days on the road.  She rolls her eyes.  Even after all they’ve been through, the three-month chip in her right back pocket once residing in his, they need to growl and snap at each other; their dynamic has not changed, just deepened its resonance.  Both knows that the other wouldn’t take their shit for a second, and it keeps them honest, not just with the world but with themselves.  He’s curled his lip; she bares her teeth right back.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

She’s right.  He wouldn’t.

“I do have something to ‘fess up to, though.”

The little wolf nearly pounces on him in anticipation, eyes wide, hungry for she-doesn’t-know-what.

“Your brothers are alive.”

“WHAT?!”  Her nails bite into his forearm as she grips him, steadying herself.

“Bran and Ricky.  Not Robb.  He’s dead as a doornail.  Sorry, that was crass.” 

She waves her hand in dismissal of his apology.  “You dirty bastard!  Why didn’t you _tell_ us? How long have you known!?”

“For a couple of months—”

“A COUPLE OF—”

“Shhh!  Shh!  She’ll hear you!”

“Why _shouldn’t_ she hear me!?”

“It’s a surprise!  Like you were.”

She blinks slowly, shaking her head.  He takes it as a sign to continue.

“I didn’t want to tell her they were coming and then not be able to pull it off.”

She weighs that for a moment.  “I guess that makes sense.  Sorta...God, you sure do like your surprises, don’t you?”

“She liked them first.”

She snickers.  “You’ve got that right.”

He sighs, maybe out of relief.  “Jon’s been pulled successfully from his cover.  He was planted in a drug gang in Mexico, but my Russian got him out.  He’ll go back to a desk job, after this.”

“He won’t like that,” Arya says confidently, looking out onto the ocean.

“He’ll like it better than missing the wedding.”

Silence.

“Brandon was—”

“Bran.”  Her eyes flick to him, then away.  “He prefers Bran.”

“Okay.  _Bran_ was living with an Inuit tribe, way up in Northeast Canada.  Spent a lot of time with mystics, he says.  Sounds older than eighteen, when you talk to him on the phone.”

“He’s always sounded older than he was,” she remarks, her contempt laced with affection and longing, picking at a splinter on the deck railing.  “Can I talk to him?”

“Don’t ask me.  We’ll get Varys to put you guys in contact.”

“Oh, Jon too.”

“And Jon.”

“And Ricky?  Where’s he at?”

“Greenland.  Similar situation to Bran.  His English isn’t so good anymore, speaks Danish now.”

“But we’ve found them.”  He doesn’t miss the ‘we.’

“ _Si, lobista_.  We found them.”

::

It’s a good thing he’s told her, too, because he needs her to cover for him when it comes time to pick up the brothers.

Jon greets him with a man-hug and an easy smile and more trust than Sandor expects.  _Arya must have told him everything._  

She’d said that she would.  He hadn’t eavesdropped on their conversation but for the moment he observed her, his iPhone dwarfing her further, with the same petite bone structure as her sister but none of Sansa’s height; she had looked both happier and sadder than he’d ever seen her, eyes flooding over with relief she let bead on her cheeks.

He’s got Sansa’s beauty in Arya’s features, this half-brother of theirs, skin browned in the sun and muscles toned by the work he does.  He makes brief but unflinching eye contact in a way that seems preemptively affectionate.  They drink black coffee and bond over complaints of its weakness.

“Sansa likes it strong too,” Sandor comments.  Jon chuckles warmly.

“Runs in the family, I guess.”

“I guess.”

“I should have brought up some good Colombian.  She would have liked that.”

Sandor crooks an eyebrow at him.

“Drugs aren’t all that comes north through the cartels.”

Sandor hums.  “Did Arya tell you she was using?” He asks solemnly.  He never promised not to tell her brother.

He can tell by his little sigh that Jon already knew.  “She told me.  How’s she doing in the program?”

“Great.  She’s really thrown herself into it.  Got clean straight away.”

“That girl.  She’ll do anything she puts her mind to, especially if she’s been told not to do it.”

“Because she gets obsessed with it,” Sandor growls.  Jon gives a silent peal of laughter, eyes squeezed tight, shoulders shuddering.

The men share their laughter.  Check the boards.  Another hour until the flight from Montreal.  Another weak coffee.  They trade stories of violence, of manhood.  He takes to this unassuming brother of hers quickly, with all Arya’s grit and Sansa’s gentleness amalgamated within him.

The boys arrive.

Brandon— _Bran—_ leads the way in a wheelchair while gangly Ricky shuffles behind him with the bags, bony like the youngest of his sisters.  The boys are freshly outfitted, having not owned proper clothes in years, but their hair remains uncut.  Ricky looks like someone needs to teach him how to shave, and Sandor wonders if he’ll get to be that for the boy.

Bran shakes a lock of his hair—not quite as red as Sansa’s—out of his face, which bears a striking resemblance to Jon, and smiles broadly as he pushes his chair clumsily toward them.  Ricky drops the bags and runs, flying into Jon’s chest, heedless of everything.  This is a reunion too, he remembers as Jon’s eyelashes begin to glisten.  Jon has thought them dead these six years as well.

Bran’s handshake is firm and his eyes are warm when they finally meet, and for some reason Sandor finds himself sheepish in this boy’s open acceptance, despite having spoken on the phone.  When Ricky regards him, the first thing he says is “it’s not so bad as they say.”  The kid’s talking about his scars, he knows, but he could say the same thing about his accent.  He claps him on the back, and the kid flashes him a toothy grin.  His chest tightens with warmth, and though he doesn’t quite know what to say to this kid, kin to his beloved, he doesn’t seem to mind.

Sandor and Jon pick up the bags and lead the way back to Stranger, and it occurs to Sandor as he drives, abstractly, that his car is full of family.  _His_ family; his _brothers_.  Brothers he can afford to love.

And maybe, he thinks , wrapped up in himself despite the din of Stark men in the car, brothers who will one day love him back.

(If they don’t already.)

::::

Sandor’s called in an AA emergency for the afternoon—it happens that way sometimes—so it’s Arya accompanying her to the florist inland.  But she’s acting weird.  Really weird.  Checking-her-phone-every-seven-seconds weird.

“Who are you waiting to text you?”

“No one.”

“Is it Motorbike Gendry?”

“Can we _not_ call him ‘Motorbike’ Gendry?!”

“That’s how you introduced him!”

“Only because you were always complaining about the motorcyclists going by at six in the morning.”

“He should have had you home a _lot_ earlier than that,” Sansa sniffs.

“Dude, I’m twenty-two, I _don’t_ need a curfew.”

“That’s not what Sandor says.”  _God only knows why.  He’s more protective of her than I am._   She thinks of heated whispering exchanges she’s caught, meaningful glares traded between them.  Of Arya’s participation in AA, which Sansa struggles not to question.

“Is something up with Arya?” She asked him one night, drawing meaningless shapes on his bare chest.

He was silent for a long moment, leaning up to look at her.  “Is it okay if I don’t want to answer that question?”

She had tried to hide her bewilderment. 

“You can say no.  I’ll tell you, if it’s not okay.”

Sansa bit her lip.  “I mean...yeah, it’s okay, I just...I’m worried about her, you know?  She’s acting weird...”

He had wrapped one arm around her, taken her chin between his forefinger and his thumb.  “Hey.  Look at me.”  She did.  “I’m looking out for her, okay?  Everything’s gonna be alright.”  His thumb made big, gentle swipes over her lips and cheeks.

“Okay,” she said, settling back against him with a sigh. “I trust you.”

Arya’s glaring daggers at her, and though she’s been back four months, it’s still a relieving sight.  Sansa breaks into a dumb, toothy smile over the steering wheel, overcome by the miracle of her, and grabs her hand.  The first couple of times, Arya had thought she’d gone mad, but she’s used to it by now, Sansa hopes.

“Have you asked him to come to the wedding?”

“Do you want _Motorbike_ Gendry at your wedding?” She can hear the air quotes.

“The more the merrier!  If he makes you happy, bring him along!”

“He’s not exactly your kind of company, Sansa.”

“Arya.  My fiancée used to punch people in the face for a living.  Most of my wedding guests I met through AA.  I think I can handle a biker guy who’s got a crush on my sister.”

She bursts out into snickers then, just like Sansa had hoped she would.  Shaking her head, Arya capitulates.  “Alright.  I’ll ask him to come.”

“Tell him the bride insists.”

“I will, Sans.”

“Hey Arya?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

She thinks she catches a blush on her sister’s cheeks.  “Me too, Sansa.”

And it’s a good thing Arya came along that afternoon too, because Sandor wouldn’t have had an opinion about the things Sansa couldn’t decide—which of the two colours of ribbon to use on the bouquets, baby’s breath or no—though she wasn’t exactly _gentle_ about her opinions.

“Oh God, please no grass.  We’ve got to walk through all that shit to get to the wedding to begin with.  No.  No.  Next one.”

 “Not that one.  It looks like toilet paper.”

“Who with a pair of eyes would pick that colour?”

“That smells like cat piss...It _does_!”

“That one.  If you don’t pick that one, I’ll strangle you with it.  I don’t care if it’s _your_ wedding, you’re using that ribbon in your arrangements...Yes all of them.”

“Fifty...Yes fifty, Sansa, since when are you one to skimp on _anything_?!”

All this interspersed with obsessive glances at her phone.  And then, with a ferocious start that gives Sansa one too, “Sansa we’ve got to get home.  _NOW_.”

“What’s wrong?!” Sansa hisses at her, following her out to the car after hastily tying things up with the florist.  The look in her eyes is wild.

“Nothing’s wrong.  You’ve got to trust me.  Get in the car.”

“Everybody wants me to trust them these days.  What is _up_ with you guys?!”

Arya wheels out of the parking lot with frightening speed, racing home with Sansa fretfully double-checking her driving.

“Please slow down.”

“No.”

“ _Arya_.”

“ _No._ ”

Arya calls Sandor as they cross onto the island, trying and failing to hide a widening grin.  _I’m in for something.  I can feel it._

“You guys all suck!” she declares while he’s still on the line. 

Arya snorts with laughter.  “Yeah.  I know,” she intones, shooting Sansa a sly grin, “she’s gonna be so surprised...See you.”  And hangs up the phone.

“I hate surprises,” Sansa pouts.

“Bullshit you do,” Arya spits, grinning still.  “You still laughed at peekaboo when you were seven.  I have _memories_ of that shit.”

“That’s different!”

“Not even a little bit.”

Sansa can’t help but laugh, folding her arms to try to regain her air of haughtiness.  “Well if you’re going to these lengths, it better be good.”

Arya just gives her another sly, knowing smile, and revs the engine.

::::

Sansa pushes through the door first, brows creased but smiling, like she’s trying to look annoyed but really feels as thrilled as he hoped she would.  Her eyes fall on him first, posing nonchalant in the kitchen, milkshake in hand.

Alongside three brothers, one long-lost, two presumed dead.

Her expression blanks, and then blooms into a happiness the likes of which he’s never seen her wear.  She bursts into tears as Ricky runs around the counter, crashing into her arms with as much violence as he did her brother in the airport.  “Oh my God!” Seems to be the only thing she can say.

Arya deals hugs to her brothers quickly, lingering on Jon, before she comes over to give him a congratulatory one.

“How was her face?”  She whispers, as he sweeps her into a hug too.

“Fucking priceless,” he rasps, choking on a lump in his throat.  “Thanks for helping, _lobista_.”

“My pleasure, _hermano._ ”

And then he drops her, because Sansa’s coming at him, all squeals and tears and kisses, and he wants to savour this with her.  Because there’s one thing she wanted in life, and he moved heaven and earth (with the help of a capable Russian ex-spy) to give it to her.

::

It’s fitting, he thinks, as he wiggles his bare toes in the warm sand and the heavy Lousiana wind plays with his hair and white silk shirt, that he’s marrying her on the same beach he first kissed her.  How many dinners did they eat, watching sunsets like this one?  How many times did he make love to her in the primal rhythm of this sea?

The Elder Brother catches his eye, winks, pats his shoulder.  “I’m only gon’ say it once, an’ I been savin’ it fo’ now: I tol’ y’ so.”  He flashes him a toothy grin as Sandor shakes his head at the man.

“And even as it’s happening, I still don’t believe you.”

But then their meagre crowd hushes and his breath catches in his throat; she’s coming over the dunes on Jon’s arm, and her dress—God, every time he thinks she could never look more beautiful, he’s _wrong_ —billows around her in soft translucent waves.  He wants to touch it.  He’ll get to, he knows, when he’s twirling her around the obligatory dance floor they’ve made in the parish multipurpose room.  But for now, her eyes flick up to meet his, and her dress, her brother, their guests, the beach, his body, they all dissipate.  All there is, in that moment as she floats towards him, is their steady gaze, even and strong, sure and true.

She slips her hands into his, the soft, cool skin he knows so well still as thrilling as it ever was.  The smiles she flashes him are shy and giddy, light in tone but heavy with significance.  And he marvels at her.  He is so busy marvelling at her that he doesn’t know what comes out of his mouth when he’s saying his vows.  His voice feels broken, clumsy, because it can’t communicate what he feels for her.  No voice could ever get it right, not even hers.  But when she vows herself to him, and he listens, hanging on her every word, (though he knows them inside-out—they wrote them together) he thinks, for the thousandth time since loving her yet with renewed conviction and vigour, that he must be the happiest, luckiest man in the world.

He’s not sure if the Brother’s told them to kiss when he dips to kiss her—he can’t keep himself off her any longer.  He kisses her and kisses her and kisses her until she stops him, the smile she gives him almost better than a kiss as she takes his hand and leads him through their guests with their fistfuls of rice, and he is just as giddy as she is.  Impossible as it seems.

::::

 _Never_ , she thinks, watching him while he’s looking elsewhere for once.  _Never would I have guessed any of this.  Never have I seen him so happy._

There’s hardly any liquor at the reception—more than half of the guests are in the program at some level—but it’s a roaring good time anyway.  Her husband— _husband, **husband**_ —carries her out onto the dance floor and sweeps her around in dizzying circles (circles that would only really count as dancing if the company _were_ , in fact, all intoxicated, but regardless), stopping every once in a while to gather her up and kiss her, or pick her up and swing her around.  He’s overcome, effervescent, in his joy.  And, she lets herself think with a stroke of pride, she’s foremost among the people who’ve given it to him.

Arya and Jeyne spent the whole morning readying the reception room, and they’ve done a smashing job, she thinks—instead of the lime-green fluorescents, they’ve lit the room with paper lanterns and white Christmas lights, strung up in clumps.  It feels like a picnic, between the Cajun pot-luck sprawled out on the buffet table,  the red-and-white gingham tablecloths, guests drinking out of mason jars fixed with the ribbon Arya liked so much, matching all the modest bouquets on the tables.  It looks nothing like the weddings she imagined growing up, like the wedding she had with Tyrion.  And she wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Sandor does not relinquish his hold of her hand at the table, nor does he let five minutes pass without kissing her somewhere—her hand, her cheek, her hair, her mouth—and after Arya and the Elder Brother have both stood and made speeches that reduces her to tears again and again and again, her brother Jon stands up.

“I know I’m not on the program to speak, but as these last four days have passed, it’s come to my attention that I have to.”  He smiles at them, and Sandor squeezes her hand.  “I’ve just got so many things I want to say to you both, and the context of breakfast or living rooms just isn’t quite right for it.  So here I am.  I hope you don’t mind.

“Sansa.  Princess.  Little sister.  I don’t think I have to tell you how much you’ve grown in the years since we last saw each other, or how proud I am of the woman you’ve become.  To have seen the things you’ve seen, endured what you’ve endured, and remained as open, kind-hearted and generous as you are, takes a sort of strength I think we all wish we had.  You are an incredible woman, Sansa.  He’s lucky to have you.

Sandor squeezes her hand again, pulls her over to place a kiss on her hair.  She’s crying again, crying so easily at this reception.  It’s alright though.

“And Sandor.  My brother.  _She_ is lucky to have _you_.  Though our acquaintance has yet been brief, I’m looking forward to calling you ‘brother’ for the rest of our days.  Because there is no one more deserving of my little sister’s heart.  No one more kind or thoughtful or tenacious in pursuit of her happiness have I ever known, truthfully.  I think I speak for the rest of the living Starks when I say that we each had a different sort of man in mind for Sansa, but that you’re all of those men and more.  I am consistently impressed by the covalence of your relationship, the evident depth of your feelings for one another.  Never have I observed a couple more in love.  And what more could we want for her than that?”

She spares a glance at Sandor, and for a moment she thinks she’s imagining it, but he’s crying too.  He turns, nuzzling her, before Jon calls back their attention, holding his mason jar over his head.

“A toast to the happiest couple I’ve ever seen, with gratitude that it’s you two.  These years will be happy ones, I have no doubt.”

“To the Cleganes!” And a chorus of voices and clinks echo him.

“ _Cleganes!_ ”

And then he kisses her.

::::

When they return home alone well into the night, they chuckle as they find the place strewn with tea candles and rose petals.  She looks at him.  “Wasn’t me,” he grunts.

“Wasn’t me either,” she giggles, stroking his arm.  “But it’s pretty, huh?”

He hums lowly, dragging his fingertips across the small of her back, before he dips to rain kisses on her exposed shoulders and throat, her soft face, her hungry lips.  It’s been an emotional night—sublime, but emotional—but now he finds his emotions simmering into a thick, hot lust deep in his abdomen, and he finds he wants to get her out of this dress as quickly as possible.

She catches his lips and draws this truth from them, her hands darting beneath his shirt to drag it off him before he can so much as grunt with approval.  He finds the zipper of her dress with a forefinger and thumb carefully draws it off her.  She opens the button of his pants.  He pulls her thighs up over his waist and holds her against him, keening into their kiss, as he blindly makes his way to their bedroom.  It’s not like he doesn’t know the way, blind and burdened with her insistent kisses.

They’ve been starving themselves of this intimacy—only two weeks they’ve fasted, but still each new brush of his fingertips across her bared and feverish skin leaves them both trembling.  Yet unlike the starving man he’d thought himself to be he engorges himself slowly, tasting every inch of her, and her of him, before he takes her truthfully as his wife. 

He reaches for the bedside table, but she stills him, three fingers on his forearm, her touch feather-light.

“No condom tonight.  I want to feel you.”

It nearly ends him, between the husk in her voice and the depth of the need in her eyes, but he curls into her body again, seeking her mouth, her breath, her warmth, her love.  And he finds it.  All of it.

And perhaps his perspective’s off because of the fast, or maybe it’s the novelty of their total skin-on-skin, but he doesn’t think it’s ever felt this good.  They know how to love one another, it’s got nothing to do with the skill of her touch or the hum of her body beneath his, those things that come with practise, which they’ve got plenty of.  It’s deeper than that, in the boiled-down emotion he’s been brewing all night.  It’s their love.  It’s never burned brighter, or hotter, or longer.  She comes for him so often he loses count, drawing blood from his scalp, his shoulders, his back, his legs.  The candles burn out and the sun rises before he’s finished in her,  but when he does he comes so powerfully he pulls her down with him, gray morning light refracting into a thousand colours on her sweat-slicked skin.

He wakes up hours later in the late morning sun—he doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he’s half atop her still and her fingers are still tangled in his hair.

“Mmnh...Sansa?  You up?”

She sighs contentedly, her red eyelashes fluttering beneath her lilac still-closed eyes.  “Not yet.  C’mere.”  And she pushes her face against his until he feels her breath on his lips, and even though he’s not a young man anymore and he should, by all counts, still be exhausted, he feels his desire building for her again.

But he’ll never run out of that.

::

When the shadows lengthen and the sunlight burnishes the other Starks turn up with pizza and ice cream for a family-only celebration.  It’s a foreign concept to him, but with his humble beach house full of their warm chatter, it doesn’t feel so foreign in practise.

Sansa stays on the couch as much as she can, too embarrassed to walk anyplace, but he doesn’t mind bringing her everything she needs, answering her every beck and call.  Arya’s the only one brash enough to comment, with a “long night Sansa?”

But his little bird chirps back, heedless of propriety, “longer than any you’ve ever had with motorcycle Gendry.”

“What is she talking about, Arya?” Jon interjects menacingly when _loblista_ is rendered speechless by her older sister, snickering behind the milkshake he made her and giving him the most distracting of meaningful looks.  _You just wait, little bird,_ he wants to say, but he’s in a roomful of her brothers.  If it were just Arya, maybe, but not with Jon so near, comrade or no.

“What’s with all this?”  Sansa asks, rubbing her knuckles against her youngest brother’s fuzzy cheeks.  He spins away from her, cradling his cheek as if in fear she’d rubbed his peach fuzz right off.  “Looks like you need a shave, baby brother!”

Before he can speak up, Ricky turns his eyes on Sandor.  It nearly stoves his chest in.  “I need to be teached how.”

He swallows the dryness in his throat.  “I’ll show you, bud.  I’ve got you covered.”

The kid—his brother-in-law—flashes him a modest, snaggletoothed grin before turning his attention to the loud and laughable spat that Jon and Arya have embroiled themselves in.  Sansa pats his thigh, her eyes bright.  He has to swallow again and breathe deep before he covers her hand with his and gives it a squeeze.

They pass the evening with board games and contests: Ricky wants to arm-wrestle, and Sandor almost lets him win; Bran has superhuman skills at charades; Arya cheats at monopoly.  It’s the simplest thing to be comfortable around them all, he thinks, standing to make another round of milkshakes for their pleading, insistent company.

But—and the realization hits him so hard he almost forgets to breathe—that’s what family is.

He casts his eyes over them, laughing and bickering light-heartedly, Sansa the only one still watching him, and eagerly at that, from among them.  This is family— _his_ family _—_ and at the centre of it, holding all of them together, the most beautiful and kind woman he has ever known, his _wife_.

He winks at her, leaning against the counter, and she grins, blushes, and winks back.


End file.
